Wednesday, September 4, 2019

Red Flag laws make sense but...

A Red Flag law allows someone to go to a court and ask the judge to prevent an individual from having a gun because the individual is a danger.

This could have helped in some mass shooting cases where people knew the eventual shooter was a nut case. That's why lots of people support them.

The problem is that if judges are dishonest Red Flag laws could turn into a nightmare.  For example you beat out a co-worker for a promotion. They go to court declaring that you're a danger to society.  Given that you may not be notified of the hearing a dishonest judge could simply take your co-worker at their word and send the police to your house to seize your guns.

At the very least Red Flag laws need very clear statements of what constitutes a danger; we can't trust judges to not impose their ideological biases otherwise.

For example if the person has said in front of witnesses, or published on social media, that he's going to kill people.  Without such constraints dishonest leftist justices could say that just because someone has a bunch of guns or because they support Trump or because they oppose illegal immigration that they are a "danger" and can have their guns forcibly removed without giving the individual a chance to defend himself.

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